Apple harvesting begins on subdued note in Himachal
SHIMLA: Amid a raging Covid-19 pandemic, the apple season in Himachal Pradesh began on a subdued note with growers flagging transportation issues and acute labour shortage.
Apple varieties that ripen early have already made their way to the markets in Rohru, Narkanda, Dhalli and Parala. The apple harvesting season in the primary applegrowing belts in Shimla, Rohru, Kullu, Kotgarh and Kotkhai begins mid-july and ends in August.
Growers are still scouting for labourers as most of them are dependent on the Nepalese migrants who arrive in the orchards in April.
The ₹4,500-crore apple economy largely depends on the labourers from Nepal. The labourers help with digging pits, planting saplings, spraying chemicals, plucking and packing . The lockdown has impacted the migration of labourers. With the government expressing inability to arrange labourers, fruit growers are making frantic efforts to arrange labourers.
LABOURERS JACK UP WAGES
In areas adjoining Uttarakhand, apple growers have arranged labour from the neighbouring state but they are demanding higher wages. The daily wages during the apple season vary between Rs 450 and Rs 600. But in wake of the labour shortage, villagers from Uttarakhand are demanding Rs 800 per day.
An apple grower, Nikam Singh Thakur of Kotsari village in Chirgaon tehsil of Rohru said, “The labourers I managed to arrange from Uttarakhand are demanding Rs 900 per day. After negotiations they settled on Rs 800 per day.”
Local fruit packer and fruit merchant Hardyal Tegta said he arranged labourers from Uttar Pradesh. “I hired a bus to fetch labourers from Azamgarh as Nepalese labourers were not available,” says
Tegta, who runs an applepackaging unit.
GUIDELINES FOR LABOURERS , ORCHARDISTS
The government has set standard operating procedures that make it mandatory for orchard owners to quarantine labourers arriving from outside the state. The fruit growers must inform the local anganwari worker, ASHA worker, panchayat pradhan and patwari about labourers being quarantined.
Apple growers also complained that at times there was delay in procuring permission for labourers’ travel. Kuldeep Tanta an orchardist from Jubbal said the biggest challenge was the shortage of labourers.